Quinn Cook and the Blue Devils had no answer for Louisville's Russ Smith on Sunday

INDIANAPOLIS – The ongoing narrative throughout this college basketball season is that there’s no one dominant team in the nation.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski and his Duke Blue Devils might beg to differ.

For 24 minutes Sunday, they did everything they could to fight, claw and will themselves into position to beat the Cardinals and earn their first Final Four trip since winning the national championship in 2010.

Then, just like that … BOOM!

In a flash, dynamic guards Russ Smith and Peyton Siva turned up the pace while Duke flinched, allowing Louisville to put together a game-changing run that sent the top-seeded Cardinals to Atlanta with an 85-63 victory in the NCAA Midwest Regional final at Lucas Oil Stadium.

It all happened so fast, the Blue Devils (30-6) almost didn’t know what had hit them.

“I thought we had a chance there, and then boom,” Krzyzewski said afterward. “That’s what they do to teams. They can boom you.

“My vocabulary isn’t very good, but I hope you understand what I mean. It’s a positive thing for them, not for us. This team is as good as we’ve seen.”

And yet, until the Cardinals lowered the boom, Krzyzewski’s second-seeded team manage to stay on even terms with its soon-to-be ACC rival.

Duke trailed by only three at halftime despite an opening 20 minutes in which it turned the ball over 10 times, had five shots blocked, saw forward Ryan Kelly miss 12 minutes because of foul trouble and had leading scorer Seth Curry go scoreless while only attempting three shots.

Things looked even more promising four minutes into the second half when Mason Plumlee, who finished his college career with a 17-point, 12-rebound effort, scored to tie the game at 42 with 16:19 remaining.

At that point, it didn’t appear as though the short turnaround from Friday’s late region semifinal win against Michigan State would be an issue for the Blue Devils.

But fatigue can manifest itself in many ways, not just tired legs.

Seth Curry wqas hounded into a 3 of 9 shooting performance in his final game at Duke

On this occasion, it was a mental lapse that began when Curry was hit on the arm as he shot a 3-pointer that could have given Duke the lead. Nothing was called and seconds later, Smith converted a three-point play to put the Cardinals back on top.

Visibly rattled, the Blue Devils missed their next nine shots during a disastrous 8½ stretch. By the time they got their wits back about them, Louisville had run off a 17-2 spurt that all but decided the outcome.

Although the Cardinals (33-5) will be joining the ACC in 2014, their win Sunday means that the league will be shut out of the Final Four for the third straight year — the first time that’s happened since 1958-61.

“At 42-42 we had that out-of-bounds and Seth either (got) blocked or whatever … and the game changed,” Krzyzewski said.

Their inability to keep Smith and Siva out of the lane and away from the rim also cost them dearly during a second half in which Louisville outscored Duke 50-31.

Smith scored 23 points despite suffering from a stomach bug that caused him to throw up during the second half. Siva added 16 points on 6 of 10 shooting and provided the glue that held the Cardinals together after teammate Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome leg injury late in the first half.

“They just come at you the whole game,” said Curry who finished with only 12 points after hitting for 29 against Michigan State on Friday. “They’re attacking you and putting pressure on you.”

The Blue Devils did an effective job of limiting the damage done by Smith and Siva during a win against the Cardinals that earned them the championship of the Battle For Atlantis tournament in November.

Mason Plumlee is surrounded by Louisville's Chane Behanan and Gorgui Dieng during Sunday's loss in Indianapolis

This time with a much more important title on the line, the outcome – like the teams themselves – was very different.

“They’re obviously better than when we played in the Bahamas,” Krzyzewski said.

While Duke was never the same since Kelly went down with an injury that forced him to miss most of the ACC schedule, Louisville has picked up steam after getting big man Gorgui Dieng back from a broken wrist.

The Cardinals have now won 14 in a row as they head to Atlanta looking to finish off a quietly dominant season with one final, loud boom.